Continued: Restaurant news: Kozlak's, Serlin's

Wu and Cook, friends since kindergarten, got their first taste of the restaurant business as 14-year-old dishwashers at the former Drover’s Inn in their hometown of South St. Paul.

The duo haven’t finalized a lot of menu details yet, although there’s a plan to offer an homage to Serlin’s famous turkey dinners. Wu is tinkering with a spicy, Korean-style burger, inspired by his recent tenure at St. Paul’s Sole Cafe, and Cook’s chicken wild rice soup has definite signature-dish potential.

A code-initiated renovation will unfortunately require the demise of the cafe’s wood booths.

“But we’re going to try as much as possible to make it look as it would have in the 1930s and 1940s,” said Wu. “We want to be the neighborhood place. That’s who we are.”